


if you're scared i'm on my way

by ShyAudacity



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Archie Andrews is a Good Friend, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt, Hurt Sweet Pea, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memories, Post-Break Up, Post-Relationship, Sad, Sad Archie Andrews, Worried Jughead Jones, ghoulies only mentioned, i cant believe hurt sweet pea wasnt a tag before how rude, sort of idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: The last thing that Archie’s expecting is for someone to start banging on his door at twenty minutes to midnight on a Friday.He’s in the living room, a rerun of Neighbors is on TV and his dad is out for the night, some guy on the construction crew had a birthday or something. Archie tries to not let his anxiousness get the better of him when the banging starts again but he still grabs his bat out of the hall closet on his way to the door, mostly precautionary, one hundred percent for his own piece of mind. He eases the front door open only to find-“Toni?”She looks as panicked as Archie feels. “I’m sorry, for the ambush, but we didn’t know what else to do.”He follows her gaze over her shoulder, just barely able to make out the shape of an injured Sweet Pea behind her with Fangs and Jughead just barely holding him up on either side, head hanging limply on his neck.Jughead looks up at him, eyes as wide and afraid as he’s ever seen them.Archie takes a full two seconds before deciding what to do. “Get him inside.”ORArchie plays nurse and is sad (with Jughead). That's it. That's the fic.





	if you're scared i'm on my way

**Author's Note:**

> I've had an idea for a hurt!sweetpea fic for a while and then this happened. Edit: im a whole idiot and a half who didnt realize there wasnt a summary on this. Wow. Go me. 
> 
> Unbeta'd and title from Where's My Love by SYML.

The last thing that Archie’s expecting is for someone to start banging on his door at twenty minutes to midnight on a Friday.

He’s in the living room, a rerun of _Neighbors_ is on TV and his dad is out for the night, some guy on the construction crew had a birthday or something. Archie tries to not let his anxiousness get the better of him when the banging starts again but he still grabs his bat out of the hall closet on his way to the door, mostly precautionary, one hundred percent for his own piece of mind. He eases the front door open only to find-

“Toni?”

She looks as panicked as Archie feels. “I’m sorry, for the ambush, but we didn’t know what else to do.”

He follows her gaze over her shoulder, just barely able to make out the shape of an injured Sweet Pea behind her with Fangs and Jughead just barely holding him up on either side, head hanging limply on his neck.

Jughead looks up at him, eyes as wide and afraid as he’s ever seen them.

Archie takes a full two seconds before deciding what to do. “Get him inside.”

They all move as quickly as they can, trying to get Sweet Pea inside without further injuring him. He whines absently while he’s being eased onto the couch, Jughead is still pinned at his side, keeping him from falling over.

Archie ducks into the bathroom, digging around until he finds the first aid kit, then he finally gets a good look at Sweet Pea. He’s bleeding somewhere near his hairline, his knuckles are practically bruised stiff, and his jeans are ripped at both of the knees. With the way that Sweet Pea keeps taking short, stilted breaths, Archie can only guess that one of his ribs must be broken.

He looks over to Toni, sitting on the coffee table as he asks, “What the hell happened?” 

“We weren’t there- Sweet Pea has had an ax to grind with the Ghoulies since day one, it was only a matter of time before he picked a fight with one- or a dozen, so it would seem.”   

“Ghoulies? Did any of them follow you?”

“I don’t think so, most of them were gone by the time we showed up, but those bastards know how to hide in plain sight.”

Archie bites his lip, huffing lightly, trying to decide what to do.

“Alright, I want you guys to keep watch just in case any of them show up, got it? Toni, you take the front door, Fangs, you keep an eye on the back- here, Jughead, hold this against his head, it’ll stop the bleeding.”

Jughead takes the gauze from him, holding it to Sweet Pea’s temple, giving Archie another panicked look.

All Archie can do is nod back at him, trying to not let his own worries slip through.

He moves as methodically as can, gingerly wrapping up Sweet Pea’s hands, feeling around for anything that might be broken. Archie winces with him every time that Sweet Pea makes a pained noise while cleaning up his cuts- he can only imagine how much this must be hurting him right now.

Jughead is still holding Sweet Pea’s head against his shoulder, trying to keep him upright and conscious. He keeps whispering to Sweet Pea quietly.

“Just a little bit longer, Sweets, alright?” he says, softly. “A few more minutes, I swear-.”

“Jughead,” Archie interrupts, cautious, “I gotta check his ribs, make sure nothing’s broken.”

Jughead nods, using his free hand to wrap around Sweet Pea’s upper arm, bracing him.

Warily, Archie pushes Sweet Pea’s jacket aside so that he can fit his hand inside; his fingers brush against his ribs for only a second before Sweet Pea is letting out a pained groan. Archie hears Toni gasp in the corner.

“Crap, sorry-.”

_“Hurts.”_

“I know, I know, bud,” Jughead says; he sounds all too much like an apologetic parent. “It’s going to hurt some more, okay? Deep breaths. I’m sorry-  _I’m so sorry-.”_

Archie ignores eye contact with Jughead as he quickly checks the other side, sighs when the response isn’t near as a severe as the last time.

“I don’t think anything is broken,” he says, “But its hard to tell through everything-.”

“That’s fine, Arch, just- it’s fine,” Jughead says, looking almost ashamed.

Archie, as much as he wants to, doesn’t say anything about it, just keeps cleaning Sweet Pea up as best he can.

Jughead removes the gauze from Sweet Pea’s temple, and Archie notices right away how much he’s struggling to hold his head up on his own. He snaps his fingers near Sweet Pea’s face a few times, trying to get his attention, then curses under his breath when that doesn’t work as he wanted it to.

“Crap- Fangs?”

_“Yeah?”_

“In the kitchen, the drawer directly left to the sink, there should be a tiny blue flashlight, I need you to bring it here.”

Archie listens as Fangs rustles around in the kitchen before coming out with the flashlight, then quickly returning to his post at the back door.

“What are you doing?” Jughead asks.

“Checking for a head injury-,” Archie says, clicking the light a few times. “Coach Clayton does this every time one of us takes a hit to the head. Hey, Sweet Pea, look at me for a minute.”

Sweet Pea looks up at him blearily as Archie moves the light in front of his face, breathing a little heavier than before; Archie feels relieved when he doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, his eyes seem to respond to the light the way they're supposed to.

“I don’t think that he’s got a head injury, but someone should probably wake him every couple of hours, just to be safe,” he looks to Toni and Fangs as they come into the room. “You guys can hide out here for tonight- as long as you need, honestly.”

“Thanks, Red,” Toni says, her arms crossed over her chest.

Archie nods, looking back only to Jughead, catching his sad gaze again.

It’s weird, having Jughead there. He hasn’t been around hardly at all since their break up a few weeks ago- hell, this might actually the longest they’ve been around each other outside of school. The breakup had been… less than amicable- messy, at best. Things had been weirdly tense between them the couple of weeks previous, and while they’d been known to bicker every once in a while, the fight they had that day… it was worse than any other.

_“it’s like you don’t even want me around you somedays-.”_

_“these girls just gawk at you and you don’t even do anything-.”_

_“can’t ever be right with you, I feel like an_ idiot _-.”_

_“care how much being a serpent means to me-.”_

_“wont let me tell anyone-.”_

_“already hard enough-.”_

_“I don’t wanna have this fight with you-.”_

_“Yeah, well same here, pal!”_

The whole house had seemingly gone silent in less than a second, stayed that way until Archie shrugged and asked:

_“What the hell is happening to us?”_

Jughead hadn’t had a response to that, and as much as they hated to admit it, it felt like a breakup. So they did, right there, three feet from the front door, Archie and Jughead broke off a relationship that was eight months in the making, a love that had been building for years. It hurt, it still does, it feels like regret more than anything else, but both are too stubborn to do anything about it.

What hurts most is that they were friends before all of this, before Serpents and Ghoulies were an issue, before the war between the north and south side- and now it’s like they don’t even have that. As if there was never anything left to fall back on in the first place.  

After getting Sweet Pea comfortable on the couch and finding a spare sleeping bag for Toni and Fangs, Archie catches Jughead's eye again, gesturing over his shoulder to the foyer, silently asking for a moment alone with him, wanting so badly to ask everything that he’s been holding in since they all showed up. 

_Do they even know? Did you tell them how much we love each other?_

Jughead ducks behind the hallway wall, away from anyone’s line of sight. He stuffs his hands into his pockets; Archie can't help but think about how this is the same spot they were standing in when they broke up, it makes him feel glum in a way he wasn't prepared for. 

“Thanks- for letting us barge in like this- I know you and Sweet Pea don’t exactly have the best history.”

Archie shrugs, “It’s fine, Jughead, I- I still wanna help you guys… if you’ll let me.”

Jughead nods, sighs, his shoulders going tense again as he looks over his shoulder at Sweet Pea.

“If we hadn’t gotten to him in time, Archie, I-.”

“Hey,” Archie cuts him off, hugging Jughead before he can stop himself. “You did everything that you could, he can’t get mad at you for that, Jug.” 

The old nickname slips out subconsciously, and Archie swears that he can feel Jughead relax into the hug as he does. Jughead doesn’t let the hug last much longer, and Archie tries to not be hurt by it; he looks at his watch, realizing it’s nearly one in the morning now.

“I’m gonna try to get some sleep,” he says. “Do you want a blanket or something? I can-.”

“No, no, I’m good,” Jughead says in a rush. “I’ll just rough it on the couches with these guys- make sure Sweet Pea still remembers his middle name in a few hours.” 

Archie laughs a little, same as Jughead, then feels a pang of sadness in his chest when he realizes just how much he’s missed this, having Jughead around, just being able to laugh with him.

“So, uh, I guess I’ll-.”

“Yeah,” Jughead interrupts. “Good night.”

Archie nods, “G’night, Jug.”

He trots up the stairs, taking a second to look back at Jughead as he settles himself into the spare loveseat. Archie bites his tongue, wanting to say something more, anything, like:

 _P_ _lease. I wanna talk about this. I miss you. Let’s fix this. I want to feel like I have you in my life again. I miss our love._  

Archie falls back onto his bed and then lies there wide awake for hours, unable to sleep a wink. He’s restless and frustrated and hates every second of it, but there’s nothing he can do about it. It reminds of the first few days after himself and Jughead broke up, how sleep had seemingly escaped him, how he worried that he’d never find peace again. Heartbreak is the kind of grief that everyone forgets until it’s happening  

Somewhere around two in the morning, Archie hears his door creak open, a pair of socked feet shuffling in. He rolls over and Jughead is standing anxiously at the corner foot of the bed, rubbing his fingers together. Archie thinks that he must have had a nightmare- if he’s slept at all, that is.

Jughead whispers, “Would you mind?”

Archie shakes his head, then moves over and lets him into bed just like old times. It’s something they often did while dating; when the world around them would become too much, _too loud_ to handle, Archie and Jughead would crawl into bed and just hold each other, a form of grounding, helping to bring each other back to reality. It is, hands down and without question, the thing that Archie misses most.  

Jughead lets his head rest somewhere between Archie’s shoulder and his chest, waiting until Archie gets an arm around his waist then quietly says:

“This doesn’t change anything.”

“…I know.” Archie says, sadly, but holds him a little tighter, just for good measure.

Archie finds himself thinking of their first kiss, all those months ago before everything started to get bad.

***

_Archie and Jughead are pressed shoulder to shoulder on Archie’s bed, fingers tangled together at their sides. They’ve been ‘official’ for two weeks now and Archie still gets giddy every time he thinks about it. The two of them are talking about new movies and school Jughead makes a left turn with the conversation._

_“Where do you think we’re gonna end up?”_

_Archie just shrugs, “I don’t know, but if you’re there, then it can’t be too bad.”_

_Jughead tries to hide his laugh. “You’re a fucking sap, Andrews.”_

_Archie laughs as well, enjoying the way that a pink blush crawls across Jughead’s face. The giggles fade away, and Archie finds himself still looking at Jughead, wishing that there was a way that he could remember this moment forever_

Well, _he tells himself_ , there is one thing that I could do.

_“Jug?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Can I kiss you right now?”_

_Jughead looks at him, eyes wide and curious, thinks on it for a second before nodding, “Yeah.”_

_Archie just leans over and does it, and for a minute, everything feels right in the world. Jughead’s lip are soft and warm, exactly as Archie had imagined that they would be. Jughead’s thumb and forefinger come up to cradle Archie’s chin, pulling him back the slightest bit, just holding him there._

_“Was that okay?”_

_Jughead gives him a smug grin. “I don’t know, you might need to do it again, just to be sure.”_

_Archie rolls his eyes, already diving in for another kiss, laughing all the while._

This, _he thinks_ , this is everything I could ever want and more

***

Archie comes back to reality, wants to cry because Jughead is asleep on his chest, but he doesn’t have the luxury of kissing him now, much as he may want to.

He only hopes he can get that back, maybe someday, hopefully, one day soon. Archie just hopes that wherever they end up, Jughead is waiting for him at the other end, ready to take his hand. But, more than anything he hopes that place- wherever it is- he hopes it doesn’t hurt, hopes it feels nothing like he does right now.  

**Author's Note:**

> This new season is already fucking with my head way too much. I've never written a broken up version of Archie/Jughead before so hopefully this doesn't suck.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments/Kudos are appreciated and encouraged. You can leave a prompt if you want. I'm (still, for now) on tumblr as archieandrewsprotectionsquad. Thanks again for reading, have a great day!


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